When I read your question, the first quote that came to my mind is by Crooks. To place it in context, he is in his little room on the night that all the other men have gone into town except Lennie and Candy and, of course, Curley's wife. After Lennie accidentally reveals their master plan of getting their own little farm and living "off the fatta the lan'," Crooks denounces the whole idea with one...
When I read your question, the first quote that came to my mind is by Crooks. To place it in context, he is in his little room on the night that all the other men have gone into town except Lennie and Candy and, of course, Curley's wife. After Lennie accidentally reveals their master plan of getting their own little farm and living "off the fatta the lan'," Crooks denounces the whole idea with one of the saddest statements in the entire novel:
"You’re nuts." Crooks was scornful. "I seen hunderds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hunderds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head/ An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head."
What makes Crooks's outlook on George and Lennie's version of the American Dream even more tragic is that, for just a few minutes, he considered that he might possibly be a part of it. He even offered to be a part of the Dream for free, saying he would work for nothing--a nod to a return to slavery on Crooks's part. When Curley's wife reminds Crooks of his "place" in this microcosm of society by threatening to have him hanged, he quickly remembers that the hopes of having a place to call home is literally just a dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment